The vibe: It’s a bright Sunday afternoon, and you’ve just wrapped up shopping and noshing at the Jack London Square farmers market. Before heading home, you and your honey cross the train tracks for the Blue Bottle Coffee Roastery, where you partake in a free cupping and coffee discussion. Cupping is the practice of observing the tastes and aromas of brewed coffee. Master roasters and baristas lead you through the procedure, which involves deeply sniffing the coffee, then loudly slurping it so the elixir spreads to the back of the tongue and you can analyze aspects of the coffee such as the body, acidity, flavor and aftertaste. Remember, with every gastronomic evaluation comes kooky vocabulary, so here are a few to tuck into your head: oily, nutty and, our favorite, animallike. 2 p.m. every Sunday and Tuesday.

For the couple who: Needs an afternoon zing.

— J. Yadegaran, Staff

Got a suggestion for a place or activity that would make a great date night? Send it to jyadegaran@bayareanewsgroup.com with “date night” in the subject line.

My niece works several jobs and is saving money for college application fees and expenses, but my brother and sister-in-law — who have notoriously poor money-management skills and compulsive spending habits — pressure her to lend them money, which they are slow to pay back, if at all.